Mod note: This post was split from the following thread: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=338257.0However, we don't have to be the co-dependent partner- we can work on that. The relationship may or may not improve, or last, but I think we can still make the choice to not allow ourselves to be abused, one way or the other. In some milder cases, I do think we can achieve not being abused, but I don't know if the other person can be a fully emotionally present spouse without a lot of personal work at it.
There are several interesting couples in my own family (Aunts-Uncles), as well others from the Congregation I grew up in down there in rural North Central Florida…
Looking back now… yes, I see it, as we are discussing.
We are talking 50-60 something years of marriage here… this is another generation, times are certainly very different now.
The terms "fleas"… and "dysfunction by proxy" comes to mind, also "stockholm syndrome".
I look back, through my first marriage, and my current "offline" marriage, I see this.
Spend a few too many days in it, "it" will start to wear off on you.
I read a lot about how a 'non' will come to question whether or not they are in fact the one whom is borderline, or narcissistic, "am I the crazy one here?".
Why is this… the reason is quite simple, its the old "go along to get along analogy".
… ie' "stockholm syndrome".
We pick up mannerisms from the ones we live with, both positive and negative behavior traits, imagine in the case of a marriage lasting over three or four decades.
We will defend the SO to family, friends, neighbors, we will hide their destructive dysfunctional behaviors… the deeper we sink into codependency, the more this happens… we will "tow the lie" to keep the peace, some will even sacrifice their own children, blood or step... to the disordered persons behaviors, controls, punishments (crazy), in order to keep them from leaving, or threatening to leave the relationship, or else the threat to take it all away, the family, the kids, the home, the marriage financial assets… a "hostage situation" you see, eg' stockholm syndrome.
You curry favor with your jailer, for a few cigarettes, and a promise not to be beaten as much after lights out.Some folks will put up with all manner of crazy… serial adultery, physical abuse, full control over each and every aspect of their lives, as said, a "hostage situation"… but it never ends… it goes on, for years and years… all the while, the damage is never repaired, there is no reconciliation of the abuse, at this point, it becomes "normalized"... now it effects not only our mental health, but now our physical heath as well… the heightened flight-fight-freeze thing… hypervigilance… panic attacks, ~> severe depression will now cause hypertension, stroke, and even heart attack...
Like being locked away in the gulag, after thirty-forty years, "you get use to it"… you normalize it.
"Now you got fleas", and you think you're the one whom is disordered, you've got a good case of "dysfunction by proxy"… when in fact you just might be the crazy one by this point.
It is very costly, even with extreme mental, and emotional retrospective strength, and effective exercised mindfulness, to remain in these relationships over the long term.
Like the Brooks 'Brooksy' Hatlen character in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption ", portrayed by the late and the great actor James Whitmore… on the "inside" for fifty years, he knows nothing else, and can't survive once freed from his prison cell by the system, now declared "reformed"… he would rather stay in his prison cell, with his jailers, than face the unknown outside the walls… how many times have we seen and some of us even experienced this scenario in our bpd-npd relationships.
We will encounter narcissists (disordered souls et' all) in all aspects of our lives, work, family, & romance… but if you have the social interactive skills to recognize, deal with, and pass them by, or even attempt to exists in a marriage relationship with one… well, there it is, we ultimately control what happens to us, not someone else, unless we have given over that power to them, some folks will go their whole lifetime, blind to this, not ever coming to an understanding; knowing "why"… they never awaken to this phenomenon, that the person they profess love to is abusive to them or the reasons why.
That's scary to me.
Red5
